


The Boot Theory

by NotLostAnymore



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Depression, Heartbreak, M/M, Ragehappy Secret Santa 2015, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:31:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7441078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotLostAnymore/pseuds/NotLostAnymore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan spent most nights alone in the bar until Gavin came along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boot Theory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foolycoolie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolycoolie/gifts).



> Written for turneyfrees on tumblr as part of the Ragehappy Secret Santa 2015. I realized that I'd never posted it up here so thought this would be the perfect opportunity now I'm fresh from RTX and eager to dip my toe back into Ragehappy, so to speak!
> 
> Based on the poem "The Boot Theory" by Richard Siken.

A man walks into a bar and says:  
                                               Take my wife–please.  
                                                                       But you take him instead.  
  
You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.  
           Your co-workers ask  
                                   if everything’s okay and you tell them  
                                                                                   you’re just tired.  
           And you’re trying to smile. And they’re trying to smile.

 

* * *

 

Life is hard, Dan was really under no illusions about that. It’s hard, it’s messy and it hurts more often than not. At his core though, he was still an optimist. He still liked to believe that there were good people in the world, people who could love and be loved. It was foolish for him to expect and he knew it but time and time again he failed to learn his lesson.

A year ago he had met a girl in the bar. Pretty, blonde, the most perfect smile. It was raining in London and yet neither of them seemed to notice as they danced through Trafalgar Square until they found themselves back in Dan’s flat, curled up with each other. It was the purest evening Dan had ever experienced and for a few short hours he felt his heart glow with a hope for the future. He hadn’t noticed the ring on her finger. He fell in love hard and fast until it broke him.

And it did. He was left in his dump of an apartment, curled up on his bed and staring at the water stains on the ceiling. For days he would fall asleep listening to the sounds of the man in the apartment above walking around and screaming into his phone. In the strangest sense he found it calming, as if a reassurance that misery was not confined to his own life. Maybe it was this building, maybe it was this city. Dan felt comfort in the misery for as long as he could before he started to drag himself out again. His smiles would never meet his eyes and his hands never quite worked as well as he wanted but it would do.

He doesn’t get better. He tries to, of course he does. Christmas comes and goes by without any visits. He moves from his lonely apartment to a crowded bar and somehow feels lonelier. He goes home alone, comforted only by the fuzz of alcohol in his system. It feels like an extra blanket, a substitute for the girl who once laid down beside him.

It’s a long time before he meets anybody new. His life feels like a turnstile – work, bar, home, work, bar, home – and no matter how many times he tries to tell himself that it’s just what life is, he doesn’t believe it. He wants more. No, it’s more than just wanting, it’s a _craving_ he can’t quite ignore.

One day a man walks into the bar. He sits down next to Dan by chance and Dan is of course taken with him. He’s skinny and tanned, stubble overgrowing and a striking nose. He wears a wedding band that Dan silently resents. The new arrival is beautiful and it already hurts him. He watches as the man orders a whiskey and coke and then turns to him. Suddenly away of his prying eyes, Dan forces himself to look away.

They sit in silence for a while, both sipping on their drinks. Dan wants to say something. Anything at all. Except he can feel the girl behind him, every bit as spectral as she has been in his dreams for a year and he knows that the man is the very same weakness. He’s a moment and it’s all Dan can think even as he takes the dive.

“I haven’t seen you here before.” The man looks up at him, his eyes lighting up a beautiful green. Maybe it’s blue. Dan blames the alcohol. Either way they’re beautiful and he’s captivated.

“Because I haven’t been here before,” the man responds, a small smile on his lips. “Don’t tend to drink much, to be honest.”

Dan silently wonders what drove him to drink tonight.

“Just needed a strong one after the day I’ve had,” he explains as if reading Dan’s very mind. For a moment his eyes linger on the wedding band and Dan finds himself looking at it too. He wishes it wasn’t there.

“Anything you don’t mind confiding in a stranger?” he asks, hoping his voice is steadier than it sounds in his head. His fingers twitch around his beer bottle and he finds himself counting his own flaws, hoping they were invisible from the outside.

“It’s my wife. She’s perfect, she’s everything and I can’t make her happy,” the man admits, halfway between vulnerable and angry. “I want to, I do but I feel like she would be better without me.”

Dan can’t say that he knows the feeling. He’s never had anybody depend on him before, much less love him. So he gives the man a small smile and orders him another drink. The man thanks him and introduces himself as Gavin. Dan commits the name to memory and immediately adds it to a list of hopes dashed. He doesn’t need to wait, he already knows how the night ends because he’s seen it and lived it before.

Its a few drinks later when Gavin slips the wedding band off of his finger and hides it safely in his pocket. Dan pretends not to notice. He pretends like his heart doesn’t beat faster with hope and fear mixed into a deadly cocktail but he’s never been particularly good at hiding his feelings. They don’t talk about it. They sit in silence, enjoying each other’s company as they fill themselves up with more and more drinks.

When Dan decides that it’s time to leave, he invites Gavin to join him. It’s brazen and so unlike himself but he’s fueled by the alcohol and ultimately thankful for it when Gavin accepts.

They don’t kiss until they make it back to Dan’s apartment. When they do it’s like Dan’s heart is flooding throughout his body. He wants to remember every little part of it: the way Gavin’s hands rest on the back of his neck as he pulls him in or how Gavin’s stubble scratches against his skin. It’s not a feeling he’s experienced before but it’s one he tells himself not to forget.

For several fleeting minutes Dan feels okay. Gavin is pressed up against him as he explores the other man’s mouth and he foolishly makes himself think that this is what he needs. His hands find their way to Gavin’s hips, fingers sneaking up under the fabric of the shirt to feel his warm skin underneath. His fingers aren’t twitching either, they feel strangely at rest as if they were waiting for this very moment to calm. He’s thankful for it.

Dan doesn’t even care about the water stains on the ceiling or how ugly his grey bedspread is as he guides Gavin into his bedroom. He’s not focusing on any of that because all he can see is how beautiful the man before him is. It’s all that matters to him in that moment.

They make it all the way to the bed, Gavin pressed down beneath him before the man starts crying. Dan pulls away, already missing the taste of Gavin on his lips. He gapes in confusion, wondering what he can do. “I can’t, I can’t,” Gavin sobs. Dan doesn’t blame him. Maybe he can’t relate but he can certainly understand.

He stays still and silent, listening to Gavin’s sobs and absorbing the weak punches on his chest. He lets Gavin take it out on him, well aware that there may be bruises in the morning. If anything he welcomes them just so he can know that he experienced something real.

“This is wrong,” Gavin says after he’s calmed down a little and Dan agrees. He bows his head and allows Gavin to pull away from him, watching as the man flees the bedroom. The slam of his apartment door splits another crack down Dan’s heart while a few drops of water drop from his bedroom ceiling.

He starts counting the angry stomps from the apartment above him. Sleep doesn’t claim him, not even when he empties the remainder of his bottle of sleeping pills. He lays down on the tatty grey bedspread and stares up at the ceiling, wondering how quickly Gavin forced the wedding band back onto his finger after he’d fled the apartment.

There are dark circles under his eyes when he pads into work the next day. His colleagues watch him and smile sympathetically but when they ask if everything’s okay, Dan finds that there’s a wall blocking him from the truth. “I’m just tired,” he says finally, the corners of his lips turning up in an attempt at a smile that never meets his eyes.

The days pass in their usual monotonous fashion and Dan finds himself slow dancing through them all alone. He finds himself at the bar again but this time he doesn’t meet anyone. He ignores the red-haired girl asking for spare change, he ignores the man offering to pay for his taxi home. Instead he just orders another drink, makes it a double and prays that it will knock him out.

Dan takes himself down to the river and lets his feet dangle over the edge. The sole of his boots are submerged in water and he wonders how easy it would be to slip the rest of his body under the surface. The thought doesn’t scare him, nor does it feel right. It simply is. He’s not going to commit suicide, he knows as much but he also knows that he can’t walk away untouched from the experience so he takes off his watch, kisses it and throws it into the water.

He watches his watch disappear under the surface and feels his heart go with it. He closes his eyes and appreciates the moment. For the first time in forever he finally feels some sort of peace.

There are no noises from the apartment above that night. No angry falling of boots, no screaming or crying. Dan curls up on the bed and lets sleep claim him for what feels like the first time in forever.

He dreams of Gavin curled up with him. He dreams of Gavin’s soft smile as he shakes his head and whispers a simple “Goodbye”.

Dan stops going to the bar. His colleagues comment on how different he seems. How _alive_ he is now. He sleeps more, he forces more smiles that eventually become genuine. He pours the alcohol he keeps under his bed down the drain and throws the bottle out of the window without a second thought.

His heart rests at the bottom of the river as forgotten and unused as it always had been but somehow Dan feels more alive than ever.


End file.
